Regarding it's not tax until it's sold, this isn't necessarily true. One little trick here is to take out huge loans using things like stock holdings as collat

Regarding it's not tax until it's sold, this isn't necessarily true. One little trick here is to take out huge loans using things like stock holdings as collateral. You're not paying tax on the money, and you can pay it back a bunch of difference ways that can limit how much you pay. There are nuances to this, it's not as straight forward as I mentioned, but that's the general idea.